By Franz Schurmann

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Prediction #23 for Tuesday, July 27th,1999

African-Americans and Africa Will Get Wired, Digital Divide or Not

• Prediction:
  A year from now data will show a substantial rise in computer use both by Africans and African-Americans. The increases will come in work places, in homes and in schools.

• Outcome:
  I shall evaluate Prediction #23 on Tuesday, July 25, 2000

When Lloyd Morrisett, former president of the Markle Foundation, coined the now widely known term "digital divide" he came up with a new view of a divided USA. America, he said, is now being divided as between "information have's and information have-nots."
The term "digital divide" has become a political weapon in the US. Thomas P. Novak and Donna L. Hoffman, directors of Vanderbilt University's Project 2000 wrote:


"Enthusiasm for the anticipated social dividends of this 'revolution in democratic communication that will harness the powerful forces of science and technology for all members of our society' appears boundless. The Internet is expected to do no less than virtually transform society.

"Nowhere is this confidence expressed more clearly than in President Clinton's aggressive objective to wire every classroom and library in the country by the year 2000 (NetDay 1998), followed by every home by the year 2007, so that every 12-year-old can log onto the Internet." (Project 2000 --- Bridging the Digital Divide: the impact of Race on Computer Access and Internet Use)."

As is clear from a Project 2000 working paper the races considered are only white and black. And the main finding of the Project is that while blacks are making significant advances in this communications revolution their participation still remains lower than that of whites.

However Morrisett's new slogan "digital divide" has broader implications. To speak of black-white relations means thinking in USA terms. To speak of the haves and the have-nots means thinking in global terms.

"Haves" designates people in the First World, the advanced industrial and democratic countries. "Have-nots" designates people in the Third world who have little modern industry and not much --- if any --- democracy. The Second World vanished with the collapse of the Sino-Soviet bloc of nations but the First World and Third World concepts are still widely used.

The latter two concepts are now seen mainly in class and race terms. The First World is mainly rich and white while the Third World is mainly poor and colored. But there now is a new second world. At one time they were called the "Newly Industrializing Countries" (NIC). Then they were called "Developing Countries," both implying that industrialization was not necessarily the main criterion for becoming developed (the advanced countries are now called "Developed Countries").
Both the former and the latter new terms are based solely on economic criteria. Neither has any racial implications. But the persistence of the First and Third World concepts indicates that many informed people believe the race factor cannot be disregarded when talking about development. However for the sake of convenience in the following discussion I'll call the Developing Countries NIC's. The Three Worlds concept was advanced in the 1950's by the French economist/philosopher Rene Dumont. At that time the First World still overwhelmingly consisted of Western Europe, the US and the Anglophone countries of the world. All of them were mainly white in race and had large middle class populations.

If we now think in race (colored-and-white) as well as class (wealth and income levels) terms then Japan was the first colored nation to make it into the First World. It started its amazing journey from a minor industrialized country (once 25th on an industrialization scale following Belgium) to a mighty industrial power which has one half of the world's potential investment capital. None of the white countries of Eastern Europe (USSR, Poland etc.) came even close to Japan's achievement.

Now in the late 1990's one can say that many NIC's have developed from well to fair. On the well side are mainly East Asian countries. China is the world's biggest NIC success story. It's success can be measured by its dramatic reduction of poverty. The same can be said of South Korea, Taiwan (China), Thailand, Malaysia and even politically troubled Indonesia. The IMF now says India is the fifth biggest economy in the world. Despite appalling poverty in many areas India's development is better than only fair. Iran's 60 million people lead difficult lives but the Islamic Revolution made things better for most. For the rest of the Middle East and Africa development is spotty. In Latin America Brazil and Mexico have become economic giants. Their progress has to be rated as at least fair.

In race terms every one of these countries is colored (meaning not of European descent). And even if the ruling elites of Brazil and Mexico are disproportionately white their creative economic and social forces are the largely mestizo middle classes.

If the Internet revolution is the wave of the future then it seems that the future already belongs to Asia. The Goldman Sachs Investment Bank just issued a report concluding that "Asia could become the on-line center of the world." By the year 2003 Asia will have an on-line population of 64 million. (Singapore, Lianhe Zaobao, July 23, 1999)

The key countries in the Internet revolution are, in rank order, China, South Korea, India and Australia. They will comprise 70 percent of the on-line markets of the Asia-Pacific region. Computer transactions are rising 145 percent a year from a base in 1998 of US$700 million.
And it's not just Asia which is fast getting wired. One of the most wired countries in the world is Brazil. It is so wired that it is one of the few developing countries to report election counts almost as fast as the US. By contrast non-wired Indonesia took two months to count its presidential election results.

With the exception of Australia all the countries mentioned are colored. This suggests that what we may be witnessing is the second great developmental revolution by colored nations. The first was Japan's whose revolution bore copious fruit beginning in the 1960's. The second, now in the l990's, is the Internet revolution which is moving lickety-split over much of Asia and some key countries in Latin America. What about Africa?

Consider the following remarks by the emperor of the Internet revolution, Bill Gates, during a visit to South Africa:

"The Internet is the single most important tool that will open up Africa to the rest of the world. The future of the world is communication and Africa is not as far behind as some people believe. "The use of computers and the Internet will trickle down inevitably throughout Africa's emerging markets as first government departments and then larger businesses start to use the technology. "Technology is not a choice ... The individual level will take a long, long time, but because we are patient and take a long- term view, we are willing to come in now and build up the infrastructure."

Microsoft is using South Africa as a base and setting up offices in Kenya and the Ivory Coast. Gates said he plans to open up ten other new offices over the next three years. (CNET/Reuters, March 6, 1997). John Perry Barlow, writing for Wired magazine (January 1998), voiced views about Africa's future similar to those of Gates (see Sidebar).

Early in 1995 I spent two months in East Africa, mainly Uganda. The optimistic take I had on Uganda at the time was similar to Barlow's on a trip two years later. But some of the things he saw I did not see. He wrote:

"A lot of money already is being made in Uganda. The country has one of the fastest growing economies on earth. Part of this is due to starting from close to nothing. Idi Amin and his barely better successor left the country in ruins. "Kampala now seems as Singapore must have been in the early 1970's. Glass and steel mushrooms up from the compost of old Kampala providing head-torquing contrasts between the shiny and the drab."




I saw some new building but no "glass and steel mushrooming up." But then I remember when in Beijing in 1993 several people said to my friend Chen Jie residing in the US since late 1990 that "you don't know because you've been away for a few years." Then around two months later my friend and guide in Vietnam Julian Do who was then working in Danang was told "you don't know because you haven't been here for a month." The name of the game is speed!

The point is that change is occurring with such astonishing speed in these NIC's that what seems like a distant vision sometimes gets realized in a few months time. Of course some of the visions are radiant, others menacing and the rest so-so. The latter seem more like the usual slow tempo with which futures creep up on one. But the speed with which the radiant and the menacing visions can occur is really breath-taking.

Gates and Barlow talk only about their radiant visions. I'm certain they were surprised, as I was, that Africa is much more than doom, gloom and boredom. What about the digital divide in the US?
Novak and Hoffman, the directors of Project 2000, definitely don't come from a gloom and doom view of African-Americans and the Internet revolution. They imply that a lot of the doom and gloom comes from the media:

"Our statistically derived estimate of the number of African-American Web users is considerably larger than the current popular estimate of one million that is frequently reported in the popular press (Interactive Marketing News 1997). Over 5 million African-Americans have used the Web in the United States as of January 1997."

Novak and Hoffman share President Clinton's view that "it is critical to improve the educational opportunities for African-Americans." On the other hand they do show that getting computer knowledge can come as much from work and home as from school.

In East Asia computerization began in the modern work sector. As cities grew the work sectors of finance, trade and administration were the first to introduce large-scale computerization. Finance means lots of banks and other financial institutions. Trade means large-scale commercial enterprises, particularly those moving goods from distant places --- both domestic and foreign. And administration means the kind of organizing, co-ordinating and record-keeping modern government and corporations have to carry out.

Computer use then quickly spread to homes. Small businesses started using home computers. Then whoever was living at home with the business persons started using computers. My sense is that schools were among the last to teach computer use. In fact, in India, the voracious appetite for computer knowledge is being filled by thousands of small private computer schools one can see in any city or town. Even so long ago as 1995 I saw the same thing on a smaller scale in Africa.

Computers are not so difficult to use. All the popular technology of this century --- cars, radios, television sets, telephones etc. --- has been learned even in the remotest and most isolated parts of the world. Just about anybody can learn to use a computer. If one can read and count one can learn. The barriers to use of computers are not IQ but motivation.

In the case of East, Southeast and South Asia computer literacy is also spreading at great speed because their peoples have direct links with relatives in developed countries. Personal and informational bridges with two-way physical traffic now exist because of easy, safe and inexpensive two-way air travel. But even more important are the communicational bridges made possible by the Internet revolution.

I am convinced that when it becomes evident how fast Africa too is moving on "information highways" then similar bridges will quickly arise linking together African-Americans, the African diaspora and Africans. Then the so-called digital divide will vanish as it has for Asian-Americans and as it will for Latino-Americans.

When will it come for African-Americans? Prediction #23 says that by next year around this time data will show a substantial rise in computer use by African-Americans in work, at home and in schools.

In addition there is a good chance that all-around peace will have finally come to Africa and that Africa will finally be moving faster on its developmental highways. Africa is already linked to Europe and America. But economically it will move closer and closer to Asia. When that happens Africa will become part of the new Asian on-line center of the world